Morning all.
Hero of the night for Renée Slegers team was goalkeeper Daphne van Domselaar who stopped everything which came her way until the dying moments of the game. By then it was too late for Chelsea to draw level. Arsenal had the ball in the back of the net before then when Stina Blackstenius headed home a Smilla Holmberg cross but the latter was millimetres offside. Beth Mead hit a fine strike which caught the post.
Chelsea manager Sonia Bompastor was livid during and after the game and to be fair, she had every right to be. Katie McCabe got away with pulling Alyssa Thompson’s hair as she looked to race away from our player. McCabe should have seen red but instead the referee, who was really poor, showed booked Bompastor before sending her off shortly after.
Lotte Wubben-Moy, who was solid in defence said after the game:
Are we away from home? It didn’t sound like that. The only difference was that it’s a blue stadium. Our fans were so good tonight. I think they out-sung the Chelsea fans tenfold, even though they were probably outnumbered by them. Our fans are incredible and it’s such a strength of ours.
This game required a lot of focus and concentration, but that’s what we’re made for. These nights are special. The history that this club has in the competition is definitely something that plays to our advantage. To be honest, when you’ve got those fans screaming behind you, the intensity and the focus is made somewhat easier.
Arsenal are through to the semi-final where they will play either Wolfsburg or OL Lyonnes.
With the international fixtures over with for the rest of the season, we now know which Arsenal players will be at the World Cup. Assuming they will be fit and selected of course.
Brazil: Gabriel, Gabriel Martinelli
Ecuador: Piero Hincapie
England: Myles Lewis-Skelly, Bukayo Saka, Noni Madueke, Declan Rice, Eberechi Eze, Ben White
Spain: Martin Zubimendi, Mikel Merino, David Raya
Germany: Kai Havertz
Norway: Martin Odegaard
Belgium: Leandro Trossard
France: William Saliba
Netherlands: Jurrien Timber
Sweden: Viktor Gyokeres
Brazil kick things off with a fixture against Morocco on June 13th and the tournament ends with the final on the 19th July.
Domestic weekend sees the women take on Brighton in the FA Cup and the men take on Southampton. A victory over both south coast clubs would be perfect.
Today and tomorrow we should get to see a few training photos on the clubs official website so we’ll have a bit of a clue as to who is fit. Then of course we’ll hear from Mikel Arteta who will hopefully give us nothing but positive news.
Catch up in the comments.
I saw some brief highlights of the girls game at Stamford Bridge and the Arsenal goalkeeper put in probably the best performance I’ve personally seen in a women’s game, strong hands and very athletic. I wonder if the women occasionally do sessions with their male goalkeeping counterparts?
Chelsea as a club are such entitled types across the board. The goal we had disallowed was well constructed and the header was on point, very unlucky there.
Morning Gooners, morning Rico
Morning Kev, she was outstanding..
Thought Slegers managed the two legs really well.
Gotta say that Myles Lewis Skelly looked very good in those highlights, Arteta really needs to use him a lot more during the run-in, he’s fresh and still in with an outside chance of a World Cup place if he has a strong finish to the season so he’ll be well up for it.
I think if Arsenal do actually decide to cash in on Myles that we’ll really regret it, massively, over the next 10 years.